Who are we

We are a coalition of BU community members urging BU to divest our endowment from fossil fuel companies.

With many of us being students with a strong stake in the survival of life on earth, we see it as an unprecedented moral imperative that society as a whole stop burning fossil fuels as soon as physically possible. These deadly forms of energy are known to alter the chemical composition of our atmosphere, and these changes are going to make life on earth much more challenging for our generation and future generations to come.

We recognize the importance of Boston University’s ability to continue operating with ample funds, and that maximizing returns on our endowment helps to pay for professor’s salaries, student scholarships, and other important and noble initiatives. But financing our education is not worth selling our future. What good will our education be when increasingly powerful storms continue to destroy our homes and offices? How helpful will our scholarships have been when ecological collapse turns to economical collapse? What will our diplomas be worth to us when India and Pakistan ignite a global nuclear war over their dwindling water resources? Any gains our endowments has at the cost of our future are, simply put, not sound investments. Moreover, we firmly believe that we can have a sustainable and profitable endowments. Sooner or later, our government will take climate change seriously, which will have disastrous effects for the fossil fuel industry. It is better and wiser to pull out now rather than let our endowments get caught in the next ‘carbon bubble.’